Aliens at the Gate

We note with relief that Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US, on human rights grounds, as stipulated by the Human Rights Act. The full statement by UK Home Secretary Theresa May can be accessed through the Guardian video link, with a (slightly abbreviated) transcript provided below:

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Much of the reaction following Ms. May’s announcement has focussed either on the legal implications regarding other past and future extraditions or on her mistaken reference to Asperger’s Syndrome as an “illness”, which of course it is not.

Though we have followed the McKinnon story from the beginning, we had never read the original indictment in its entirety until today. The document presents the UFO researcher as a highly dangerous enemy of the state, one whose eyes (and keystrokes) had penetrated firewalls considered by government prosecutors as critical for the protection of national security.

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While the legal charges center around alleged transmission of codes and destruction of data (hacker mischief and vandalism), the deeper threat is not hard to decrypt: That little nerd saw stuff — and knows stuff.

In an interview with Wired News back at the time of the indictment, Mr. McKinnon elaborated in some detail about what he saw, and what he knows:

Of course, any mention of “Roswell” in polite intellectual circles, and the eyes glaze over, and whoever might have dared to utter the word is instantly consigned to the discursive looney bin.

Here at DP, we take no fixed position on whether or not there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe; we are baffled enough by the human mysteries of our immediate neighborhood. Nonetheless, we do like to follow twisting paths, connect obscure dots, and stumble around in the fog. Thus we chanced upon a fascinating video that may help explain how the intense curiosity of a harmless young man should lead to his designation as a dangerous enemy of the state.

Try to screen out the annoying Twilight Zone voiceover (how do these narrative tropes become so entrenched?) and focus on the interviews with the various researchers, including those who are skeptical:

NON-TERRESTRIAL OFFICERS IN ACTION?

In any event, following the statement by Ms. May, a former counsel to the White House named David Rivkin made statements of his own, which we can relay courtesy of the excellent Guardian live blog:

And then this …..

Forgive me, Mr. Rivkin, but apparently you are unaware of the “precise situation” of our criminal justice system. Your comments are laughable. Mr. McKinnon himself displayed a finer understanding of the brutal reality in a rare interview with the Guardian in 2005: